Despite China's vast territory, relatively few impact craters have been identified within the country. Recently, however, a research team led by Dr. Feng Yin and Ming Chen from HPSTAR（Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research）discovered an oval-shaped impact crater in northeast China. This is the first known example of a mountain ridge impact crater. Their study entitled "Discovery of the Hailin impact crater in northeast China" is published in the journal Matter and Radiation at Extremes.

The Hailin impact crater is located in a middle-low mountainous area in the north of Hailin City, Heilongjiang Province. The crater, formed on a mountain ridge, is an oval depression with asymmetric rim height: 1360 meters in the north-south direction and 1150 meters in the east-west direction. The crater’s basement is a granodiorite batholith, which is covered by Quaternary sediments containing numerous rock fragments. The team discovered shocked breccia clasts and multiple sets of planar deformation features in quartz collecting from the crater floor. These provide crucial evidence for the impact origin of the structure.

Panoramic view of Hailin impact crater.

"Based on the analysis of the geological and terrain evolution history of the area, the impact event probably occurred in the late Cenozoic Era,” explained Dr. Ming Chen. “The unique oval shape of the Hailin impact crater is the result of an asteroid impact on slope of a mountain ridge. This discovery deepens our understanding of the characteristics of impact structures in mountainous regions.”

This work has been highlighted simultaneously by Scilight with an article entitled of "An impactful discovery: impact crater found in northeastern China".

Media reports: LiveSicence: https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/worlds-1st-mountaintop-impact-crater-discovered-in-northeastern-china

                          Global Times: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1323678.shtml

                          新华网： https://english.news.cn/20241123/a5c0dba373e1498ab52396231b808b61/c.html

                          ChinaDaily： https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202411/23/WS6741e0c4a310f1265a1cf3d4.html

近日，北京高压科学研究中心陈鸣团队在我国黑龙江省海林市新发现了一个陨石撞击坑——海林陨石坑。相关研究成果论文在《极端条件下的物质与辐射》杂志上发表，题目为“Discovery of the Hailin impact crater in northeast China”。美国物理学联合会出版社（AIP）《科学之光》（Scilight）网络周刊以“An impactful discovery: impact crater found in northeastern China”为题对这项成果作了同步报道。海林陨石坑是一个形成山脊上的撞击坑，基岩为花岗闪长岩。该陨石坑呈现为一个椭圆形小盆地，南北坑缘直径1360m，东西直径1150m，南北坑缘之间高差达一百多米。陨石坑坑缘及坑底大量堆积的角砾状岩石碎块。岩石碎屑中石英面状变形页理（PDFs）的发现等，提供了这个地质构造星球撞击起源的关键证据。基于该区地质和地貌演化历史分析，海林陨石坑形成在新生代晚期。海林陨石坑的形态特征显然与山脊地形的撞击成坑密切相关，这项发现深化了对山地撞击构造特征的认识。论文链接https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0236993。